ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND

The Cat's head began fading away the moment he was gone, and,
by the time he had come back with the Duchess, it had entirely
disappeared; so the King and the executioner ran wildly up and down
looking for it, while the rest of the party went back to the game.
CHAPTER IX. The Mock Turtle's
Story
'You can't think how glad I am to see you again, you dear old thing!' said the Duchess, as
she tucked her arm affectionately into Alice's, and they walked off together.
Alice was very glad to find her in such a pleasant temper, and thought to herself that
perhaps it was only the pepper that had made her so savage when they met in the kitchen.
'When I'M a Duchess,' she said to herself, (not in a very hopeful tone though), 'I won't
have any pepper in my kitchen AT ALL. Soup does very well without—Maybe it's always
pepper that makes people hot-tempered,' she went on, very much pleased at having found
out a new kind of rule, 'and vinegar that makes them sour—and camomile that makes them
bitter—and—and barley-sugar and such things that make children sweet-tempered. I only
wish people knew that: then they wouldn't be so stingy about it, you know—'
She had quite forgotten the Duchess by this time, and was a little startled when she heard
her voice close to her ear. 'You're thinking about something, my dear, and that makes you
forget to talk. I can't tell you just now what the moral of that is, but I shall remember it in a
bit.'
'Perhaps it hasn't one,' Alice ventured to remark.
'Tut, tut, child!' said the Duchess. 'Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it.' And
she squeezed herself up closer to Alice's side as she spoke.
Alice did not much like keeping so close to her: first, because the Duchess was VERY
ugly; and secondly, because she was exactly the right height to rest her chin upon Alice's
shoulder, and it was an uncomfortably sharp chin. However, she did not like to be rude, so
she bore it as well as she could.
'The game's going on rather better now,' she said, by way of keeping up the conversation
a little.
''Tis so,' said the Duchess: 'and the moral of that is—"Oh, 'tis love, 'tis love, that makes
the world go round!"'
'Somebody said,' Alice whispered, 'that it's done by everybody minding their own
business!'